Baja Sessions is a 1996 album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 by Chris Isaak

Chris Isaak

Christopher Joseph "Chris" Isaak is an American rock musician and occasional actor.-Early life:Isaak was born in Stockton, California, the son of Dorothy , a potato chip factory worker, and Joe Isaak, a forklift driver. Isaak's mother is Italian American, originating from Genoa...

, featuring largely acoustic

Acoustic music

Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

 arrangements. The album contains a large number of cover

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

s, many of which are classic songs which refer to, or are styled to suggest tropical, laid-back settings, such as the Hawaiian-tinged "Sweet Leilani

Sweet Leilani

"Sweet Leilani" is a song from the 1937 film, Waikiki Wedding. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and was popularized by Bing Crosby who recorded it in 1935....

" and "South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)

South of the Border (1939 song)

"South of the Border" is a popular song describing a trip to Mexico, written by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr and published in 1939 for the film of the same name starring country star Gene Autry....

". Though its title refers to Baja, California

Baja California

Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...

, the album was recorded at San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

's Coast Recorders.

A 58-minute documentary was released featuring Isaak performing the songs as well as making amusing asides, surfing and generally mucking around.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Chris Isaak, except where indicated

1. "Pretty Girls Don't Cry" – 3:09
2. "Back on Your Side" – 3:03
3. "Only the Lonely
   Only the Lonely
   "Only the Lonely " is a 1960 song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson. Recorded by Orbison, it became his first major hit. As an operatic rock ballad, it was a sound unheard of at the time, described by the New York Times as expressing "a clenched, driven urgency". It is seen as a seminal event...
   
   " (Roy Orbison
   Roy Orbison
   Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
   
   , Joe Melson
   Joe Melson
   Joe Melson , is an American singer and a BMI Award–winning songwriter.Melson was born in Bonham, the seat of Fannin County in northeast Texas. He was reared on a farm until he was sixteen. He attended high school in Gore, Oklahoma, and in Chicago before he returned to Texas to study at the two-year...
   
   ) – 2:53
4. "South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)
   South of the Border (1939 song)
   "South of the Border" is a popular song describing a trip to Mexico, written by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr and published in 1939 for the film of the same name starring country star Gene Autry....
   
   " (Jimmy Kennedy
   Jimmy Kennedy
   Jimmy Kennedy OBE was an Irish songwriter, predominantly a lyricist, putting words to existing music such as "Teddy Bears' Picnic" and "My Prayer", or co-writing with the composers Michael Carr, Wilhelm Grosz and Nat Simon amongst others.-Biography:Kennedy was born near Omagh...
   
   , Michael Carr
   Michael Carr (composer)
   Michael Carr , real name Maurice Alfred Cohen, was a British light music composer born in Leeds. He is best remembered for the song "South of the Border ", written with Jimmy Kennedy for the 1939 film of the same name.Among Carr's other compositions were The Shadows instrumental hits "Man of...
   
   ) - 3:10
5. "I Wonder" – 2:55
6. "Wrong to Love You" – 3:55
7. "Waiting for My Lucky Day" – 2:38
8. "Yellow Bird
   Choucoune (song)
   "Choucoune" is a 19th century Haitian song composed by Michel Mauleart Monton with lyrics from a poem by Oswald Durand. It was rewritten with English lyrics in the 20th century as "Yellow Bird."-Choucoune:...
   
   " (Norman Luboff, Alan Bergman) - 2:29
9. "Two Hearts" – 3:19
10. "Return to Me" (Carmen Lombardo, Danny DiMinno) - 2:17
11. "Dancin – 3:57
12. "Sweet Leilani
    Sweet Leilani
    "Sweet Leilani" is a song from the 1937 film, Waikiki Wedding. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and was popularized by Bing Crosby who recorded it in 1935....
    
    " (Harry Owens
    Harry Owens
    Harry Owens was an American composer, bandleader and songwriter.-Biography:Harry Robert Owens was born April 18, 1902, in O'Neill, Nebraska. He learned how to play a cornet in a small band on an Indian reservation in Montana.-Early years:He worked the vaudeville circuit by age 14. Owens studied...
    
    ) – 2:16
13. "Think of Tomorrow" – 2:57

Personnel

• Chris Isaak - vocals, guitar
• Hershel Yatovitz - guitar
• Rowland Salley - bass, vocals
• Kenney Dale Johnson - drums